Jason Major, Author at Universe Today

June 15, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Voyager 1 Breaking Through the Borders of the Solar System

After almost 35 years traveling at over 35,000 mph, the venerable (and still operational!) Voyager 1 spacecraft is truly breaking through to the other side, crossing the outermost boundaries of our solar system into interstellar space — over 11 billion miles from home.

Data received from Voyager 1 — a trip that currently takes the information 16 hours and 38 minutes to make — reveal steadily increasing levels of cosmic radiation, indicating that the spacecraft is leaving the relatively protected bubble of the Sun’s influence and venturing into the wild and wooly space beyond.

From the JPL press release:

“The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system’s frontier.”

The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.

“From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering,” said Stone. “More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month.”

This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft’s two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.

“When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old. Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be — or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it.”

– Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, Caltech

Mickey Mouse on Mercury?

This collection of craters, shaped not unlike the iconic head of a certain cartoon mouse, was imaged by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft on June 3, 2012.

All together now: C-R-A, T-E-R… M-O-U-S-Eeeeee…

Acquired as part of MESSENGER’s extended mission to map Mercury’s surface in higher detail, the image above isn’t map-projected; that is, it’s not aligned with north as up. In reality the large crater that makes up Mickey’s “head” is north of the two “ears”.

Still, this is one big mouse head — the large crater in the center has a diameter of approximately 105 km (65 miles)!

Read more about this and see many other images of the first rock from the Sun on the MESSENGER mission site here.

Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

June 15, 2012April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

Astronomers Measure Sunlight’s Shove

The physical force of sunlight on a moving asteroid has been measured by NASA scientists, providing information on how to better plot these Earth-passing worlds’ future paths.

First proposed by a 19-century Russian engineer, the Yarkovsky effect is the result of an object in space absorbing radiation from the Sun and emitting it as heat, thus creating a slight-but-measurable change in its movement (thanks to Newton’s first law of motion.)

By observing the 1999, 2005 and 2011 close passes of asteroid 1999 RQ36 with the Arecibo and Goldstone radar telescopes, astronomers were able to determine how much the trajectory of the half-kilometer-wide asteroid had changed.

The researchers’ findings revealed that RQ36 shifted by 160 km – about 100 miles – over the course of those 12 years. That deviation is attributed to the Yarkovsky effect. A miniscule force in and of itself, over time it has the ability to move entire worlds (albeit relatively small ones.)

“The Yarkovsky force on 1999 RQ36 at its peak, when the asteroid is nearest the Sun, is only about a half ounce — about the weight of three grapes on Earth,” said Steven Chesley of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena “Meanwhile, the mass of the asteroid is estimated to be about 68 million tons. You need extremely precise measurements over a fairly long time span to see something so slight acting on something so huge.”

Using measurements of the distance between the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and RQ36 during its latest pass in 2011 – a feat that was compared by team leader Michael Nolan to “measuring the distance between New York City and Los Angeles to an accuracy of two inches” – Chesley and his team were able to calculate all the asteroid’s near-Earth approaches closer than 7.5 million km (4.6 million miles) from the years 1654 to 2135. 11 such passes were found.

In addition, observation of 1999 RQ36 with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope found it to have about the same density as water – that’s light, for an asteroid.

Most likely, RQ36 is a “rubble-pile” form of asteroid, composed of a conglomeration of individual chunks of material held together by gravity.

These findings will be used by NASA scientists to help fine-tune the upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2016 to rendezvous with 1999 RQ36 and return samples to Earth in 2023. Being a loose collection of rocks is expected to aid in the spacecraft’s sample retrieval process.

The findings were presented on May 19 at the Asteroids, Comets and Meteors 2012 meeting in Niigata, Japan. Read more here.

(Top image: series of radar images of asteroid 1999 RQ36 were obtained by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif. on Sept 23, 1999. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

June 14, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Is It Time to Return to the Moon?

Should we pay another visit to the Moon? (From "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" by Georges Méliès, 1902)

Humans haven’t set foot on the Moon — or any other world outside of our own, for that matter — since Cernan and Schmitt departed the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. That will make 40 years on that date this coming December. And despite dreams of moon bases and lunar colonies, there hasn’t even been a controlled landing there since the Soviet Luna 24 sample return mission in 1976 (not including impacted probes.) So in light of the challenges and costs of such an endeavor, is there any real value in a return to the Moon?

Some scientists are saying yes.

Researchers from the UK, Germany and The Netherlands have submitted a paper to the journal Planetary and Space Science outlining the scientific importance of future lunar surface missions. Led by Ian A. Crawford from London’s Birkbeck College, the paper especially focuses on the value of the Moon in the study of our own planet and its formation, the development of the Earth-Moon system as well as other rocky worlds and even its potential contribution in life science and medicinal research.

Even though some research on the lunar surface may be able to be performed by robotic missions, Crawford et al. ultimately believe that “addressing them satisfactorily will require an end to the 40-year hiatus of lunar surface exploration.”

The team’s paper outlines many different areas of research that would benefit from future exploration, either manned or robotic. Surface composition, lunar volcanism, cratering history — and thus insight into a proposed period of “heavy bombardment” that seems to have affected the inner Solar System over 3.8 billion years ago — as well as the presence of water ice could be better investigated with manned missions, Crawford et al. suggest.

(Read: A New Look At Apollo Samples Supports Ancient Impact Theory)

In addition, the “crashed remains of unsterilized spacecraft” on the Moon warrant study, proposes Crawford’s team. No, we’re not talking about alien spaceships — unless the aliens are us! The suggestion is that the various machinery we’ve sent to the lunar surface since the advent of the Space Age may harbor Earthly microbes that could be returned for study after decades in a lunar environment. Such research could shed new light on how life can — or can’t — survive in a space environment, as well as how long such “contaminants” might linger on another world.

Crawford’s team also argues that only manned missions could offer all-important research on the long-term effects of low-gravity environments on human physiology, as well as how to best sustain exploration crews in space. If we are to ever become a society with the ability to explore and exist beyond our own planet, such knowledge is critical.

And outside of lunar exploration itself, the Moon offers a place from which to perform deeper study of the Universe. The lunar farside, shielded as it is from radio transmissions and other interference from Earth, would be a great place for radio astronomy — especially in the low-frequency range of 10-30 MHz, which is absorbed by Earth’s ionosphere and is thus relatively unavailable to ground-based telescopes. A radio observatory on the lunar farside would have a stable platform from which to observe some of the earliest times of the Universe, between the Big Bang and the formation of the first stars.

Of course, before anything can be built on the Moon or retrieved from its surface, serious plans must be made for such missions. Fortunately, says Crawford’s team, the 2007 Global Exploration Strategy — a framework for exploration created by 13 space agencies from around the world — puts the Moon as the “nearest and first goal” for future missions, as well as Mars and asteroids. Yet with subsequent budget cuts for NASA (a key player for many exploration missions) when and how that goal will be reached still remains to be seen.

See the team’s full paper on arXiv.org here, and check out a critical review on MIT’s Technology Review.

“…this long hiatus in lunar surface exploration has been to the detriment of lunar and planetary science, and indeed of other sciences also, and that the time has come to resume the robotic and human exploration of the surface of the Moon.”

— Ian A. Crawford, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck College, UK

Top image from “Le Voyage Dans La Lune” by Georges Méliès, 1902. Second image: First photo of the far side of the Moon, acquired by the Soviet Luna-3 spacecraft on Oct. 7, 1959.

June 12, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Galactic Close Call Leaves a Bridge of Gas

Illustration of a hydrogen gas bridge connecting the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies (Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

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An ancient passing between two nearby galaxies appears to have left the participants connected by a tenuous “bridge” of hydrogen gas, according to findings reported Monday, June 11 by astronomers with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

Using the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia — the world’s largest fully-steerable radio telescope — astronomers have confirmed the existence of a vast bridge of hydrogen gas streaming between the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the Triangulum galaxy (M33), indicating that they likely passed very closely billions of years ago.

green_bank_h — The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia (NRAO/AUI)

The faint bridge structure had first been identified in 2004 with the 14-dish Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands but there was some scientific dispute over the findings. Observations with the GBT confirmed the bridge’s existence as well as revealed the presence of six large clumps of material within the stream.

Since the clumps are moving at the same velocity as the two galaxies relative to us, it seems to indicate the bridge of hydrogen gas is connecting them together.

“We think it’s very likely that the hydrogen gas we see between M31 and M33 is the remnant of a tidal tail that originated during a close encounter, probably billions of years ago,” said Spencer Wolfe of West Virginia University. “The encounter had to be long ago, because neither galaxy shows evidence of disruption today.”

The findings were announced Monday at the 220th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska. Read more on the NRAO website here.

June 11, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Lightning From Space!

Photo of Earthly lightning seen from orbit by ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers

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Here’s an amazing shot of a flash of lightning within storm clouds over west Africa, captured from orbit by ESA astronaut André Kuipers aboard the ISS.

Lightning is a common sight from Space Station, creating a constant light show for the astronaut and cosmonaut crew members. On average, lightning strikes the ground somewhere on Earth 100 times each second, and there are 5 to 10 times as many cloud-to-cloud flashes as there are ground strikes. That adds up to about 40 to 80 million flashes of lightning every day around the world! Considering that the ISS orbits Earth 16 times a day — and from quite a high viewpoint — it stands to reason that lightning is spotted quite often.

So although it may not be rare, lightning still makes for dramatic photos — especially to those of us here on the ground!

For more information on André and his ongoing long-duration PromISSe mission, visit the ESA site here.

Image credit: ESA/NASA

June 10, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

There’s a Hole in the Sky!

A vast hole in the cloud cover seen over the southern Pacific

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Well, not the sky exactly, but definitely in the clouds!

This image, acquired by NASA’s Aqua satellite on June 5, shows an enormous oval hole in the clouds above the southern Pacific Ocean, approximately 500 miles (800 km) off the southwestern coast of Tasmania. The hole itself is several hundred miles across, and is the result of high pressure air in the upper atmosphere.

According to Rob Gutro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, “This is a good visible example of how upper-level atmospheric features affect the lower atmosphere, because the cloud hole is right under the center of a strong area of high pressure. High pressure forces air down to the surface blocking cloud formation. In addition, the altocumulus clouds are rotating counter-clockwise around the hole, which in the southern hemisphere indicates high pressure.”

The northwestern tip of Tasmania and King Island can be seen in the upper right of the image.

The Aqua mission is a part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observing System (EOS). Launched on May 4, 2002, Aqua has six Earth-observing instruments on board, collecting a variety of global data sets about the Earth’s water cycle. Read more about Aqua here.

June 9, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

On the Edge of Titan

Titan's haze-covered limb seen by Cassini on June 6

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Here’s a quick look at one of my favorite cosmic photo subjects – the varying layers of atmosphere that enshroud Saturn’s enormous moon Titan. The image above is a color-composite made from three raw images acquired by Cassini during its latest flyby.

On June 7 Cassini approached Titan within 596 miles (959 km) and imaged portions of the moon’s northwest quadrant with its radar instrument, as well as conducted further investigations of areas near the equator where surface changes were detected in 2010.

The image here was assembled from three raw images captured in red, green and blue visible light channels. It reveals some structure in the upper hydrocarbon haze layers that extend upwards above the moon’s opaque orange clouds — reaching 400-500 km in altitude, Titan’s atmosphere is ten times thicker than Earth’s!

The June 6 flyby was the second in a series of passes that will take Cassini into a more inclined orbit, where it will reside for the next three years as it investigates Saturn’s polar regions and obtains better views of its ring system.

Tomorrow’s Transit Will be the First Photographed From Space

Venus photographed from the ISS (ESA/NASA)

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ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers captured this stunning image of Earth’s limb with Venus shining brightly above on the morning of June 4, 2012. While it’s a fantastic shot in its own right, it’s just a warm-up for tomorrow’s big transit event, which will be watched by millions of people all over the world — as well as a select few aboard the ISS!

While many people will be taking advantage of this last opportunity to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun — a relatively rare event that’s only happened six times since the invention of the telescope, and won’t occur again until 2117 — the crew of the International Space Station is preparing to become the first astronaut to photograph it from space!

Transit of Venus by NASA's TRACE spacecraft Image credit: NASA/LMSAL — Transit of Venus in 2004 by NASA's TRACE spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/LMSAL

Expedition 31 flight engineer Don Pettit knew he’d be up in orbit when this transit takes place, and he went prepared.

“I’ve been planning this for a while,” says Pettit. “I knew the Transit of Venus would occur during my rotation, so I brought a solar filter with me when my expedition left for the ISS in December 2011.”

(See more of Don Pettit’s in-orbit photography: Timelapse of a Moonrise Seen From The ISS)

Even though the 2004 transit happened while the ISS was manned, the crew then didn’t have filters through with to safely view it.

Pettit will be shooting the transit through the windows of the cupola. He’ll even be removing a scratch-resistant layer first, in order to get the sharpest, clearest images possible — only the third time that’s ever been done.

Don’s images should be — no pun intended — brilliant.

“I’ll be using a high-end Nikon D2Xs camera and an 800mm lens with a full-aperture white light solar filter,” he says.

And if you want to follow along with the transit as it’s seen from down here on Earth, be sure to tune in to Universe Today’s live broadcast on Tuesday, June 5 at 5 p.m. EDT where Fraser Cain will be hosting a marathon event along with guests Pamela Gay, Phil Plait (a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer) and more as live views are shared from around the world.

Unless you plan on being around in 2117, this will be your last chance to witness a transit of Venus!

Read more about Don Pettit’s photo op on NASA Science News here.

June 4, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Enter the Universe Today “Wonders of the Universe” Contest!

The iPad app features seven apps in one, all of which are linked 3D environments to explore: Subatomic, Atomic, Local Stars, Solar System, Milky Way, Galaxy and the Universe.

If you’ve seen the excellent BBC/Science Channel series “Wonders of the Universe,” you know that host Brian Cox’s natural enthusiasm for astronomy is nothing short of infectious. His explanations of far-out concepts bring the mysteries of our Universe down to Earth for everyone to understand… and now he and HarperCollins UK have brought them even closer — right to your iPad.

Now, here on Universe Today you can win a free copy of the app as well as a signed copy of his Wonders of the Universe or Wonders of the Solar System hardcover book!

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Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is designed for people with any level of understanding of astronomy, from casual explorers interested in the aesthetics to those looking for a deeper educational experience. Users can travel with Professor Brian Cox on his personal tours through the Universe, or jet off on a solo voyage of discovery through the planets of the Solar System to local stars and onwards through the galaxy.

Additionally, the app takes full advantage of the extensive capabilities of the new iPad, using a powerful 3D engine capable of handling high-resolution textures and complex animations created exclusively for iOS5.

Watch a personal tour of the app given by Prof. Brian Cox above.

Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is available on the iTunes store now for an introductory price of $6.99 USD… or you can enter for a chance to win a free download along with a signed copy of a Wonders of the Universe or Wonders of the Solar System hardcover book (four of each are available!) by emailing [email protected] with subject line “Wonders App”.

Be sure to put your mailing address in the body of the email, and we will randomly select 8 winners to receive a signed book (our discretion) and a download code for the app.

The contest is open to all U.S. residents. One winner per mailing address. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery of the books. Winners will be chosen by June 10, 2012.

These are beautiful books that are chock full of information about our Universe as well as signed by Brian Cox himself… don’t miss out on a chance to get one!

wonders books — Wonders of the Universe and Wonders of the Solar System books (HarperCollins UK)

Also, be sure to check out the latest app from HarperCollins UK, Fragile Earth. It uses amazing satellite imagery from all across the planet to put a century of climate change at your fingertips. It’s currently available from the iTunes store for $2.99 USD.

(App downloads and books provided courtesy of HarperCollins UK and Walker Sands Communications.)